Blessed

Blessed                                                                                  
Isla Osborne, 2011
160mm x 160mm x 240mm       
Lampworked glass, replica skull, paint          

In the sixteenth century, one of the Catholic responses to the Reformation was to exhume bodies from ancient Roman catacombs and authenticate them as saints. These relics were distributed throughout Europe and often decorated with gold and precious stones. In reality, the bones could have belonged to anyone.

In these works, I have bejewelled replica skulls with glass viruses, creating a tension between the beauty of the piece and what it represents